New research about how to have more engaging Facebook posts
Key Takeaways
- Timing is Key for Engagement: Research indicates that engagement rates on Facebook are highest during early mornings, evenings, and at the end of the workday. While many businesses tend to post during regular work hours, scheduling posts outside of these times can better align with when your audience is active and engaged.
- Days of the Week Matter: Contrary to expectations, Thursday and Friday show 18% higher engagement rates compared to weekends, which often perform below average, particularly Saturday. This insight emphasizes the need to test and adapt posting schedules based on your specific audience and industry trends.
- Tailor Strategies to Your Industry: Engagement rates can vary significantly by industry. For example, while retail may see lower engagement on Fridays, other sectors like entertainment may experience spikes on different days. Businesses should conduct A/B testing to find the optimal posting times for their unique audience, rather than relying solely on generalized data.
Engaging customers and potential clients on Facebook is more art and less science, so when we get some numbers and suggestions, most businesses jump at the chance to incorporate the ideas immediately. Let’s face it – building community takes time and dedication.
Recent research from Buddy Media puts numbers to trends you may have already noticed if you are watching your Facebook Insights data carefully. I suggest that when you incorporate these tactics that you do a little A/B testing, see if your audience reacts the same as those in the study. Although the study covers a range of businesses, yours may differ. For example, even though the research shows that engagement rates are 20% higher in the early mornings, evenings and at the end of the work day, I don’t find that to be true of my Facebook page. Most of my readers check in early in the day and throughout the day. However, these numbers are very interesting for those businesses only posting during THEIR work hours. It serves as an important reminder that social media outposts serve a community and the community’s schedule may or may not match up with business hours, in fact, for consumers, they almost certainly do not match up, as your community is at work during those same business hours. There’s no shame in scheduling Facebook posts outside of work hours. There are a number of ways to handle off-hour comments, but few people actually expect a response within 4 hours, so rest easy and take advantage.
So with that data, one would expect that Saturday and Sunday would be the best engagements days. Ahh, just when you think you’ve got it all figured out – there’s a curve ball. It turns out, Thursday and Friday have engagement rates 18% higher, with Saturday being 18% below average. Of course, again, these numbers vary for industry, particularly the entertainment and media industries (when engagement actually spikes), but it gives you a baseline with which to do your own testing. One of the most interesting findings in this area, was that Friday postings for retail is significantly lower than Sundays and Wednesdays, yet retailers most typically post on Fridays. Also very interesting to me was the data that shows
